Bihar CID to probe into chopping off girl's hands

The Bihar government on Monday ordered a criminal investigation department (CID) probe into the alleged chopping of the right hand of an eight-year-old girl near a railway station in Patna last Thursday.

Director general of police (DGP) Abhayanand ordered the probe into the alleged attack in a bylane near the state capital’s Rajendra Nagar railway terminal, after her mother met chief minister Nitish Kumar at his janata durbar.

Dismissing the police version that the child’s arm had to be severed by doctors at the Patna medical college hospital owing to injuries she sustained when she fell under a train, the mother sought “justice” from Kumar.

After he had heard her, the chief minister asked her to meet the DGP, who was present at the janata durbar, held as a weekly feature at Kumar’s official residence in a VVIP enclave of western Patna.

Asked how she wanted the matter to be dealt with, the victim’s mother left it to the DGP to do whatever he thought was the best way to bring justice to her family.

Thereafter, the DGP ordered the CID to investigate the matter after getting the full account of events from the complainant.

Additional director general of police (CID) AK Upadhyaya, who was present there, told reporters the agency would probe afresh the woman’s complaint in its entirety.

“Besides the allegation that the victim’s right arm was chopped off with a sharp-edged weapon soon after she alighted from a train at the Rajendra Nagar station late Thursday night, the CID would also go in the kidnapping of her brother Zulfikar Alam, 4, in May, allegedly by Bobby Khan and his men, in which the victim was a witness”, Upadhyay said.

The ordering of the CID probe came even as Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaj had cited preliminary probe findings to show the severing of the victim’s right arm came about after she fell from a train.

The victim’s father, Ainul Ansari, had Thursday night’s attack near the railway station was the handiwork of Khan and his men who had earlier abducted his son Zulfikar, allegedly over a “land dispute.”

Ansari had also claim the family had come to Patna to seek the DGP’s help in securing the release of his son, when the attack took place.

He had also claimed the assailants wanted to kill his eight-year-old daughter as she was the sole witness to her brother's kidnapping in May at Laheriasarai in north Bihar’s Darbhanga district, where Ansari works as a tailor.